17 lines
2.9 KiB
HTML
17 lines
2.9 KiB
HTML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" standalone="no"?>
|
||
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>recursive acronym</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="../../jargon.css" type="text/css"/><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.61.0"/><link rel="home" href="../index.html" title="The Jargon File"/><link rel="up" href="../R.html" title="R"/><link rel="previous" href="recursion.html" title="recursion"/><link rel="next" href="red-wire.html" title="red wire"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">recursive acronym</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="recursion.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">R</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="red-wire.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><dt><a id="recursive-acronym"/><dt xmlns="" id="recursive-acronym"><b>recursive acronym</b>: <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="grammar">n.</span></dt></dt><dd><p> A hackish (and especially MIT) tradition is to choose
|
||
acronyms/abbreviations that refer humorously to themselves or to other
|
||
acronyms/abbreviations. The original of the breed may have been TINT
|
||
(“<span class="quote">TINT Is Not TECO</span>”). The classic examples were two MIT
|
||
editors called EINE (“<span class="quote">EINE Is Not EMACS</span>”) and ZWEI
|
||
(“<span class="quote">ZWEI Was EINE Initially</span>”). More recently, there is a Scheme
|
||
compiler called LIAR (Liar Imitates Apply Recursively), and
|
||
<a href="../G/GNU.html"><i class="glossterm">GNU</i></a> (q.v., sense 1) stands for “<span class="quote">GNU's Not
|
||
Unix!</span>” — and a company with the name Cygnus, which expands to
|
||
“<span class="quote">Cygnus, Your GNU Support</span>” (though Cygnus people say this is a
|
||
<a href="../B/backronym.html"><i class="glossterm">backronym</i></a>). The GNU recursive acronym may have been
|
||
patterned on XINU, “<span class="quote">XINU Is Not Unix</span>” — a particularly
|
||
nice example because it is a mirror image, a backronym, and a recursive
|
||
acronym. See also <a href="../M/mung.html"><i class="glossterm">mung</i></a>,
|
||
<a href="../E/EMACS.html"><i class="glossterm">EMACS</i></a>.</p></dd><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="recursion.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="../R.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="red-wire.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">recursion </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> red wire</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
|